AN: So still updating this. I hope people are still enjoying it. It got long and very rambly and started to suck then I found plot. Then it became this. You can tell me if it is better.

The next day was the last day of school and it was all parties and celebration. Teachers ignored their students as they drew on the walls and yelled to one another across the yard. James saw Vince and that was more than enough for him. Suddenly he was cheering as the bell rang with everyone else.

James' day was happy and uneventful until he returned to the school grounds after seven that evening to retrieve a book he had forgotten. He reached his locker and was starting to input his combo when someone called to him.

"James?"

He stopped and looked down the hall at the figure at the other end of the hall.

"James, we need to talk."

"Do I know you?" he called.

The figure got closer, a crowbar coming into focus, and replied, "No, but I know you. You are what that thing made. Your father, Michael, and I talked the other day. Now it's time for us to talk." Scott's face was becoming clearer and he looked insane. Furious beyond comprehension.

"There's nothing for us to talk about." What the hell was this guy doing with a fucking crowbar? As Scott moved closer, James moved farther away. "Why are you here?"

Scott's pace picked up and something snapped in James and he took off. Scott followed slowly gaining ground with each step.

"Franz!"

"Hold on. The doors are locked up a head. You are not going to be able to just walk off this campus."

"What! Why not?"

"Scott must have locked them before he confronted you."

"Why would he do that?" James asked as he crawled through a floor vent into a classroom.

"I don't know. Just stay away from him. I'll give you directions. They may seem round about but trust me."

He stood up and looked around the hallway.

"Keep going! He's coming after you!"

Sounds of a man forcing his way through the vent came to James and he took off as fast as he could. As he turned a corner, he saw Scott running after him, full tilt. Franz gave him directions that took him all over the school and every single exit was locked. Still Scott chased him with a crazy fixation. James had tried blocking his way but Scott just found a way around it some how.

"Franz! I need direction now!"

"Take the next right."

He dashed down the next right, his shoes slipping out from him a little. Scott was only twenty feet away and still following him.

"Need more than that."

There was a pause as Franz thought. "Amazing. He knows where you are even when you are three corridors from him. I'm sorry but I don't know if there's anything either of us can do."

"I need something other than that!"

"Wait…"

"Sorry." James slammed into the wall ahead and continued to follow the corridor.

"There's a massive spike in the main power core for the school."

"What does that mean?" James panted as he froze. There was a dead end. He was trapped. Quickly he turned and retreated to make his stand.

"I don't know."

"There you are—" Scott said as he found James.

But it was Scott's gasp of shock that got James on edge. There was someone standing between the two of them.

Scott took a step back a swung instinctively at the person's midsection. James' defender pulled back away from the swing, the bar passed through him as if he wasn't there and he faded.

"A holo-projection. An A. I. holo-projection," Franz supplied. "But this school doesn't have projection cameras. One would have to reprogram and rewrite thousands of lines of code do to that."

Scott froze and looked around, looking for his attacker.

"Another spike."

The man reappeared and slammed his very solid fist into Schott's back. Scott went down and James got a really good look at the holo-project that was way too solid to be a mere projection from a mere A. I.

"Impossible."

James did not register his A. I.'s statement.

He was staring at himself, only older with some minor changes. How…?

Scott turned to face the man. "But how? You're dead. I buried you!"

The man grinned and looked at Scott with an expression James never had. "And that's the fun part about this whole thing." And he hit Scott with SPARTAN force. Scott went down and stayed down. As his body made contact with the floor, the other man disappeared.

Silence fell and James sat down as his legs gave way.

"What… Who was that?"

"I don't know. We should go to your dad. He just might know what going on."

Caboose was standing over the stove frowning at what might have been a stir-fry in another life when the door slammed shut. Giving up on the idea of a nice homemade dinner, he turned off the stove and went to find out what the noise was. He found James leaning against the door, breathing heavily.

"What happened?" Caboose asked as James looked up at the sound of his voice and jumped ever so slightly. "I heard Scott had been asking—"

"Church. Leonard. What did he do before joining the military?" James interrupted him.

"What? Why?"

"Because I am fairly sure I just saw him at school."

Franz materialized and said, "Not only did we see him, he was able to take Scott down with no trouble. It appeared that he was a hologram. A solidified holo-projection of some kind of smart AI."

"Wait. Scott?"

James took a deep breath and quickly explained, "I had to go back to school because I forgot that book, remember? Well Scott was there. He was waiting for me. With a crowbar."

"As far as I could discern, he had placed the school in lock down before we arrived. He planed on trapping and, in all likelihood, killing James."

Caboose looked shocked at the news and shook his head. "Is a solid holo-projection even possible?"

"Quite. Only it takes a very special smart AI to be able to do that."

Caboose shook his head again. "I don't know why an AI would take on his –"

"What did he do before join—"

"I don't know. All he ever mentioned was dating Tex." He sat down and ran his fingers through his hair. "For all I know he could have been anything."

"Call her. Find out."

As if on cue, the phone rang. Caboose picked it up automatically.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end was clearly digitized, as though the person was using a computer to speak. "The password to the UNSC personal files regarding AI's will be 'passover2' for the next hour and a half."

"What?"

"'passover2'." And they hung up.

Caboose stared at the receiver frowning at it in complete confusion.

"What did they say?"

"The password to the UNSC personal files regarding AI's will be 'passover2' for the next hour and a half."

James looked at Franz who raised an eyebrow. "Then what are we waiting for?"

They were in the UNSC's personal files within five minutes. A heartbeat later, they had found L. L. Church's profile.

"Let's see here," Caboose said, sitting in front of the computer, James hovering just behind him. "He was involved in the production of AIs." Scrolling down, Caboose found something that made him inhale sharply. "He was the best. Shit. He worked with the woman who designed the Master Chief's AI."

Franz spoke up, explaining what Caboose had always known so well that he had not realized that his son might not be aware of. "There are two kinds of AI's: smart and dumb. A smart AI has no limits to its evolution while a dumb one is made for a single propose and can not deviate from it."

"What are you? Smart or dumb?" James asked.

"I am a dumb AI. Now you know the names have nothing to do with intelligence." Franz said with an edge in his voice.

Caboose scrolled down some more. "Here." James leaned in to get a better look at the screen. "This has to be what Scott was talking about. Looks like they needed a smart AI fast. No time to do a clone, even a flash clone. Church volunteered."

"It killed him. But it saved billions of lives. Never knew he was the self sacrificing type."

Caboose looked at James' confused face and explained, "A dumb AI is programmed from scratch. A smart AI is cloned from someone's brain. Normally the brain is cloned because the process basically liquefies the brain. They needed faster than even a flash clone would allow."

Pulling back, James frowned. "He let them. He told them to use him. But all that happened years before he was even in listed."

It was Caboose's turn to be confused. "How do you know when he was in listed?"

James fidgeted a little, glanced away, and replied sheepishly, "His dog tags."

Franz, it seemed, was not paying attention. "How did he get to Blood Gulch if he was dead? Or even have me assigned to him or—"

"Good question," Caboose said, interrupting the AI's string of queries before it went out of control. After a few more minutes of searching, they found what they were really looking for. "Once they were done with the AI, they put it through basic training and shipped it out. Served twice; once as a super smart AI and once as a solider."

"But," James said softly.

"How did he have you if he was just an AI?" Caboose finished for him. "This must have been what Scott was talking about."

"What do you mean?"

"He told me that the person he called his son never went to Blood Gulch. In fact according to him as well as these records, the real Church died over twenty years ago." Caboose chewed on his lip before turning to Franz. "Would it be possible for an AI to reproduce in a flesh and blood way?"

"Hm. An advanced enough system might be able to – with enough lines of code rewritten. I would say it is possible, just not likely even though that is exactly what it looks like happened," Franz said eyeing James.

"Whoa, back up here," James said, standing up straight and taking a step back. "You first tell me or rather not, that this Church is …" He seemed uncomfortable voicing Church's exact relation to him. "Then we find out he wasn't human?"

"James, calm down. Franz, even though the humans in Church's family die after giving birth, the AI would not have died. But because he wasn't – isn't – human –"

"His matrix should still be around."

James glanced around quickly. "You mean he's still … alive?"

"It's very likely."

A heavy silence hung in the room.

"So where is he? I mean, the AI of him?" James whispered.

"Here's another question: who told us the password."

"It is possible that the AI gave it. Voice change is easy enough."

"But why not just say it was him?" Caboose said, pain evident in his voice. "Why play?"

"Maybe he must." At the two humans' looks, Franz continued, "As a military AI he is owned by the UNSC. It is possible they would want to get him back for study."

"Study? Why?"

"Simple. He has done what no other AI has done before. I would not be suspired if they wanted you two, James. It is even possible they contacted Scott to help them get you. "

Caboose frowned. "But why would Scott want to capture his own grandson for a military study?"

"I don't think he thinks of me as his grandson. I'm not sure if he doesn't want me dead," James said softly.

"Hmm. It would make sense. Scott blames the military for the death of his son. It stands to reason that he views James as just another one of their experiments."

"He sees me as an insult to his son's memory," James said, more to himself than anyone else.

"Based on this data, I would not be surprised if the only reason Scott is helping the military is because they have to find the AI and delete him. Perhaps he has even been asked to acquire James."

"Oh gods…"

"We won't let that happen," Caboose said very firmly. "James, they are not going to get you. James. Scott will not touch you." Caboose's son looked at him with terrified eyes. Caboose had not seen someone look that scared since –

"I should still have two weeks."

"Church. You don't get those two weeks."

"But if the military is looking to get me then how—"

"Not all of the military. Franz, the woman who Church helped make the Master Chief's AI – Dr. Halsey – can you get in contact with her?" Caboose asked, turning quickly to face the AI.

"It is possible—"

"Then do it! Tell her what's happening. See if she can help."

Franz nodded and faded.

"Church was smart. I expect he found a loophole to keep his AI from being deleted."

James stared at the screen for a solid minute. "So…"

"What?"

He looked up at his father and smiled shyly. "Does this mean I will get to meet him?"

Caboose laughed at the sudden joy in James' face and all the tension from the moments before was gone.